Ad Spectatores from Wroclaw (source: Courtesy od New Drama)
THE 2012 NOVÁ dráma (New Drama) festival is a competition of contemporary theatre that will return to Bratislava for the eighth consecutive year, from May 14 to May 19. “Afterwards, it will travel to other Slovak cities like Košice, Nitra, Prešov and Žilina,” festival head Vladislava Fekete told the TASR newswire.
To qualify for the competition, theatres’ stagings of dramas cannot have premiered earlier than 2011 and the pieces cannot be older than from 2000.
Experts chose 10 out of a total of 40 Slovak and world theatre pieces to vie for three prizes, including the Grand Prix Nová drama, which will be chosen by an international jury. Audience members will also be able to cast their votes for the Viewers’ Prize and the Bratislava Viewers’ Prize.
The main competition will take place in seven theatres in Bratislava. The accompanying programme includes theatre workshops, an exhibition of Polish theatre photographs, readings, lectures, discussions and a translation workshop.
Each year, the festival focuses on one issue or one country, and this time Focus Poľsko (Focus Poland) will offer anthologies of contemporary Polish dramas, readings from Polish plays, a lecture by Polish theatrologist Justyna Jaworska and two legendary Polish theatre companies: Ad Spectatores from Wroclaw, with the documentary performance 9 rekonštrukcia; and Teatr na Woli from Warsaw, with Our Class by Tadeusz Slobodzianek.
“The idea of the festival is to support the creation of new pieces by young, modern playwrights,” said actress Zuzana Kronerová, the honorary head of the festival, to TASR. “I am sure that mainly for young audiences, they can touch them more – and more pressingly than the classics, which are, of course, fantastic too.”
All pieces are presented with English subtitles, Lucia Čarnecká of the festival informed The Slovak Spectator. Our Class, in Polish, will also have Slovak subtitles. More information – some in English – can be found at the www.theatre.sk website, in the section Projects and Services, Nová drama (New Drama) festival.
